as Rainer said i got mine right after Xmas though i ordered them early on..the American mix of TBB, though clear, again confirmed my suspicion that the US mix was always flat and the guitars IMO were almost non-existent.....i have both versions on CD and LP and the harder edge pink disc is so much more listenable, but ive only been listening to it for 30 + years !

the RTTB live side (BBC and the concert ) are pure gold IMO...nicely done by Spam vocally and playwise..the 1986 sessions are interesting for sure, couple of those are good, other 2, Meh.. LOL

great job on the releases, though i was surprised to received clear LP packaging..no biggie, just gonna store it away !

This thread should arguably have been in cd reviews and not market place but never mind.

On the subject of market place, it seems the 2nd hand values of Twin & Raw have, as expected, dipped considerably. One recently sold on ebay for a mere £8 and others are on sale now with a starting price of 99p. That seems to be a good sign that people have bought the remasters and are happy to dispose of the originals. But bearing in mind there is going to be a flood of these cds, the price is only going one way and that is down, so get in quick if you are selling!

I have not bought either of the new cds or lps at the moment, I am waiting for the box set, although I do already have the US vinyl of twin barrels and the raw to the bone live stuff. the US mix of twin barrels is fascinating but ultimately let down by non existent guitars - drums and bass are great though!

what i am interested in is some more detail of what Guy has described as "the holy grail" ie the Raw sessions with Palmer and Lang - it does not seem that anyone is particularly bowled over by them but can anyone comment in more details please?

There are a couple of rockier songs which remind me of Twin Barrels Burning type guitar approach with Andy's vocals in a sort of Number The Brave vein. The other two songs are slightly more 'relaxed'; I can't really put them into a pigeonhole as such. Not ballads but not out and out rock songs either.

As for being bowled over, maybe none of these songs are going to change the way we think about Wishbone Ash's music in general but we should be really happy that we are getting some of this unreleased material out there. There's a school of thought that with digitisation, some bands are just releasing material that would otherwise have been discarded. I can certainly say that these songs sound as musically proficient as any other material, and are certainly worthy of being heard by the wider community.

The BBC sessions are excellent and shows how very good these musicians all are/were.